Illocutionary act is a technical term introduced by John L. Austin in
investigations concerning what he calls 'performative' and 'constative
utterances'. According to Austin's original exposition in How to Do Things With
Words, an illocutionary act is an act (1) for the performance of which I must make it clear to some other person that
the act is performed (Austin speaks of the 'securing of uptake'), and (2) the performance of which involves the production of
what Austin calls 'conventional consequences' as, e.g., rights, commitments, or obligations. For example, in order to
successfully perform a promise I must make clear to my audience that the promise occurs, and undertake an obligation to do the
promised thing: hence promising is an illocutionary act in the present sense. However, for certain reasons, among them
insufficient knowledge of Austin's original exposition, the term 'illocutionary act' is nowadays understood in a number of other
ways.
Many define the term with reference to examples, saying such things as that any speech act
like stating, asking, commanding, promising, and so on is an illocutionary act; they then often fail to give any sense of
the expression illocutionary act capable of making clear what being an illocutionary act essentially consists in.
It is also often emphasised that Austin introduced the illocutionary act by means of a contrast with other kinds of acts: the
illocutionary act, he says, is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a locutionary act, the act of saying something, and also contrasted with a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something.
Still another conception of an illocutionary act goes back to Schiffer's famous book 'Meaning' (1972, 103), in which the
illocutionary act is represented as just the act of meaning something.
According to the conception Bach and Harnish adopt in 'Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts' (1979), an illocutionary act
is an attempt to communicate, which they again analyse as the expressing of an attitude.
According to a widespread opinion, an adequate and useful account of "illocutionary acts" has been provided by
John R. Searle (e.g., 1969, 1979). In recent years, however, it has repeatedly been doubted
whether Searle's account is well-founded. A wide-ranging critique is in F C Doerge Illocutionary
Acts[1]. Whole collections of articles examining
Searle's account are: Burkhardt 1990 [2] and Lepore / van
Gulick 1991[3].
Illocutionary force
Several speech act theorists, including Austin himself, make use of the notion of an illocutionary force. In Austin's
original account, the notion remains rather unclear. Some followers of Austin, such as David
Holdcroft, view illocutionary force as the property of an utterance to be made with the intention to perform a
certain illocutionary act -- rather than as the successful performance of the act (which is supposed to further require the
appropriateness of certain circumstances). According to this conception, my utterance of "I bet you five pounds that it will
rain" may well have an illocutionary force even if you don't hear me. However, Bach and Harnish assume illocutionary force just
in case this or that illocutionary act is actually (successfully) performed. According to this conception, you must have heard
and understood that the speaker intends to make a bet with you in order for the utterance to have 'illocutionary force'.
If we adopt the notion of illocutionary force as an aspect of meaning, then it appears that the (intended) 'force' of
certain sentences, or utterances, is not quite obvious. If someone says, "It sure is cold in here", there are several different
illocutionary acts that might be aimed at by the utterance. The utterer might intend to describe the room, in which case the
illocutionary force would be that of 'describing'. But she might also intend to criticise someone who should have kept the room
warm. Or it might be meant as a request to someone to close the window. These forces may be interrelated: it may be by way of
stating that the temperature is too cold that one criticises someone else. Such a performance of an illocutionary act by means of
the performance of another is referred to as an indirect speech act.
Illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs)
Searle and Vanderveken (1985) often speak about what they call 'illocutionary force indicating devices' (IFIDs). These are
supposed to be elements, or aspects of linguistic devices which indicate either (dependent on which conceptions of "illocutionary
force" and "illocutionary act" are adopted) that the utterance is made with a certain illocutionary force, or else that it
constitutes the performance of a certain illocutionary act. In English, for example, the interrogative mood is supposed to
indicate that the utterance is (intended as) a question; the directive mood indicates that the utterance is (intended as) a
directive illocutionary act (an order, a request, etc.); the words "I promise" are supposed to indicate that the utterance is
(intended as) a promise. Possible IFIDs in English include: word order, stress, intonation contour, punctuation, the mood of the
verb, and performative verbs.
Illocutionary negations
Another notion Searle and Vanderveken use is that of an 'illocutionary negation'. The difference of such an 'illocutionary
negation' to a 'propositional negation' can be explained by reference to the difference between "I do not promise to come" and "I
promise not to come". The first is an illocutionary negation - the 'not' negates the promise. The second is a propositional
negation. In the view of Searle and Vanderveken, illocutionary negations change the type of illocutionary act.
See also
References
- ^ Doerge (Friedrich Christoph), Illocutionary Acts - Austin's Account and
What Searle Made Out of It Tuebingen University (2006) [1]
- ^ Burkhardt, Armin (ed.), Speech Acts, Meaning and Intentions: Critical
Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle. Berlin / New York 1990.
- ^ Lepore, Ernest / van Gulick, Robert (eds): John Searle and his Critics.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1991.
- Alston, William P.. Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning. Ithaka: Cornell
University Press. 2000
- Austin, John L.. How To Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1975 ISBN 0-19-281205-X
- Burkhardt, Armin (ed.). Speech Acts, Meaning and Intentions: Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle.
Berlin / New York 1990 ISBN 0-89925-357-1
- Doerge, Friedrich Christoph. Illocutionary Acts - Austin's Account and What Searle Made Out of It. Tuebingen
2006. [2]
- Lepore, Ernest / van Gulick, Robert (eds). John Searle and his Critics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1991. ISBN
0-631-15636-4
- Searle, John R.. Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press. 1969 ISBN 0-521-07184-4
- Searle, John R.. Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press.
1979 ISBN 0-521-22901-4
- Searle, John R. and Daniel Vanderveken. Foundations of Illocutionary Logic.
Cambridge University Press. 1985. ISBN 0-521-26324-7
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
